New St. Cloud Non-Profit Focused On Helping Teens

ST. CLOUD - A new non-profit organization with a goal of supporting teens is starting up in St. Cloud.

Ethan Turck is a board member for the group "I AM". He says one of their biggest goals is to open a resource center.

What that would do is it would allow adolescents to come after school and do paint nights, music nights, things like that.  And we would also have a bunch of classes, anything from things like life skills, suicide prevention, dealing with mental illness...

They also hope to get a passenger van so they have a way of getting the teens to the resource center.

"I AM" has been in the works for about six months now. Board member Leah Rubink says they've been talking with area schools about the idea of bringing in some public speakers.

We've all kind of agreed the most impactful speakers are the ones who tell a personal story that you can relate to. So we'd like to do a lot of that education piece.

"I AM" has a big kick-off fundraiser event on Saturday, February 18th. It's an inaugural Black & White affair at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown St. Cloud.